Rumor: Apple axed 'evolutionary' 64-bit Final Cut Pro 8 for 'revolutionary' FCPX - Page 4

It was proven to be bullshit the same day fcp.co posted it.

Why this guy's statement was been given any credence or merit is completely beyond me. And he jumped in the same day it was published (November 25th) and told them himself they were wrong.

I've already had it out with fcp.co about their reporting on this, but shame on AppleInsider for relinking and spreading this garbage.

A guy in a video said it, so it must be true!

Good luck with that. Most of these guys aren't going to have an open mind until they are forced to because their competitors are cleaning their clocks using more modern tools.

Nothing new here. Those not ready for change or who don't want to change complain, and then either fade away or grudgingly adapt.

Apple doesn't have to kiss their butts. All Apple has to do is make compelling products that are heads and shoulders better than their competitors and thus by not using them you are at a distinct competitive disadvantage.

It's how the original FCP got entrenched, it's how the iPhone is penetrating business and even government far faster than I ever thought would be possible and it's how FCPX will eventually displace the existing players and force a major change in video. Especially with DSLR video taking off, tapeless workflow is the future, and FCPX is the only current app written from the ground up to embrace that paradigm.

At the end of the day, actions speak louder than words. Sure, there may be some short term flux, but in the long run I have no doubt Apple's strategy with FCPX will pay off. Now I'm not giving them a complete pass - I do think they bungled the message and made a huge mistake in withdrawing FCP7 sales way too soon - but those are temporary issues.

Ugh - stop writing on your walls then. The only thing certain is hyperbole and ignorance (again, correlate the Mac Pro releases with Intel product schedules for the Xeon chips used in the Pro)

Really? How.

Seriously - provide more detail than "because I said show" to prove you really do understand that which you are intimating.

I dare you...

Then they wouldn't be able to complaing


More like therapist

And you would end up with crapware with nonsensical "features" like most of the rest of the industry spews.


For those with no imagination or fortitude to establish a vision and execute against it.


For companies interested in delivering mediocre products, perhaps. Customer survey's might be the only halfway legitimate thing in your list, and Apple does incorporate feedback. Not always a fast or completely as I and many others would like, but they aren't totally deaf. But they aren't schizophrenic and scattershot like many of their competitors either chasing after every whim, and I value that more because overall it produces higher quality products.

Fair enough - new software tends to have more bugs. Then again, I have had zero lockups, kernel panics, or programs that have unexpectedly quit since switching to Lion. No other version of Mac OSX can claim that for me. And I'm running a non-apple flashed video card on my Mac Pro!


Such as? I have found Lion to be purely additive. There isn't one new Lion feature that I will probably never use (like Launchpad) that is bothering me in the least.


Funny, it works just fine for me. Then again, I'm actually using it and not just reading about other people moaning about it on the internet

So obviously penned by a wanna-be "filmmaker" fanboy, working for Mickey-D while still living with mom and dad, longing for "the good old days" he never lived, and somehow deluded into believing a middle-class house anywhere costs $150K in 2011, or that an upscale apartment rents for $2K/month. Keep dreaming, sweetie. Your grimy-haired friends helping you make yet another poorly lit zombie thriller ain't getting picked up at Sundance, and it's not Apple's fault.

Well i have to say most of my clients who use FP7 will be moving to Avid, most are retraining right now.
Avid has a road map with no big surprises, Apple is going have to do more research on the pro side. FPX is great for the home user and student but years behind the pro market and if apple ends the pro line then I'll be supporting windows machines after 20 years as a Mac consultant.

For a company with 75 billion in cash...easy. Just give us pros some hope. FCP X is not it! It would not be the Easy path... Eliminating pro features was the easy path, and that is what they have done.

Amazing how many people extolling the professional abilities of Final Cut Pro X cite a home movie to show it off. I rest my case. Yes, I'm old school and until FCP X can do a decent workflow without metadata-based workarounds for simple stuff like track patching and legacy project support, we're elsewhere.

I've never been an Adobe fan, we work mostly now in Avid, but Encore's as useful as DVD SP and can at least make a Blu-ray, Premiere can rewrap QTs to MXFs, useful all round. Still looking for the amazing thing FCP X can do... I'm sure we'll find it.

I beleive you ment to say, "iTS products."

Well, to be prudent, as professionals, we have to plan for contingencies. Since Apple doesn't offer any forward outlook we have to develop our own plan B. Based on their recent history of eliminating pro machines and applications I don't think a little skepticism is too unrealistic with regards to the future of the Mac Pro.

Apple always introduces new products with reduced functionality. Then listens what the audience needs, and slowly adds stuff. e.g iOS 1.0 did not have cut and paste. This is the only way you can develop an app from the ground up, removing clutter that has been there for ages.
Photoshop is still the best photo editor in my book (miles better than Pixelmator), but Adobe will never be able to have the courage and start over again. So eventually they lose by bolting on new features and do nothing more.

That being said I don't undertand the problem with FCPX. I use it professionally and I love it. Yes, we DO need the 2012 upgrade Apple promised. When this is delivered we have a video editor that almost does the same thing as FCP 7, but this time much faster and much better.

The real problem is Motion. That app is seriously lacking compared to After Effects. Here the "prosumer VS professional user" is much more apparent.

How do you survive in this world?

Will definitely agree with you here on this. It is a shame that we cannot upgrade our early 2008 Mac Pro graphics cards with something that is FULLY SUPPORTED. Also agree with you about Thunderbolt...it will definitely NOT be a replacement for PCIe. Rob at Barefeats ran some great benchmarks of the latest iMacs compared to mid range Mac Pros and found the iMac to be on par if not slightly faster. Emailing with him about this, his conclusion was that building a PC is about the same cost when you factor in the higher-res display of the iMac. IMO and to me what is more important though is that you lose the flexibility, the PCIe lanes and the multi-hard drive capability. Not to mention you are tied to the iMac display. I don't want a bunch of cables with external drive bays sitting around on a desk. I want to pump TB drives into a box and be done with it and be able to swap them in and out at will when projects demand it.

Frankly if so many media outlets are reporting on rumors and speculation about the EOL of Mac Pro, then it is very simple thing to do. Put out a simple one liner "this is categorically a false rumor".

Trust me, switching to an iMac is going to feel like a downgrade if we have to go that route next year. If Apple puts out an all new Mac Pro then I will eat crow and you all can say I told you so Blur! But usually where there is smoke, there is fire.

I know you guys think this is crazy, but we are almost at an upgrade cycle and 3 years is stretching it for our studio. Maybe you are not at an upgrade cycle yet but when that time comes and there is still no Mac Pro refresh and rumors are abound, let's see what you say then?

Thank you mstone. This is exactly where I am coming from here. It is all about the studio upgrade cycle.

I absolutely agree. My response was more directed at the previous commenter who suggested that Apple chose the "easy path" by creating a brand new application better geared towards a majority of editors out there (some call them 'prosumers,' but I find that term degrading), instead of working to keep their existing interface and tools available for the higher-end customers. It's "easier" to create what some people call "iMovie Pro" than it is to rewrite a full-featured 64-bit video editor like Adobe and Avid did a few years ago.

I fully recognize that getting FCP into Cocoa would have required a rewrite not only of Final Cut Pro itself, but also every component it depends upon. Since Apple was faced with this reality, they decided to take this opportunity to retool and rethink what Final Cut itself is and how it fits into Apple's technology roadmap going into the next decade. The result is a very powerful foundation that definitely has a rocky start, but in a few years will be moot.

It's always good to be proficient in alternative applications, and you should definitely use the tool that works best for you - FCPX isn't that tool for some people right now, though you would do yourself a disservice if you completely passed and ignored it.

Apple didn't "eliminate pro features," they rebuilt a new foundation for what they want their video editor to be. Any time you make a break from the past and start over like that, you're not going to be able to carry every feature over on day one. Sure, FCPX is 'incomplete' for some users and studios out there, especially those who rely on Final Cut Studio to power their business, but it isn't going to stay that way. Features will be added over time, prioritized by customer feedback and what makes sense along Apple's technology roadmap.

If you need something today that FCPX doesn't support, the answer is obvious - transition over to something else or continue to use the older version. FCP7 is still a powerful editor that works fine today, even on Lion. All of these systems, Adobe, Avid and yes, even Apple, will get better with time.

I have switched. I'm using Premiere Pro for its native file capabilities (it will play almost anything) exporting to Media 100 Suite 2.1 as ProRes HQ for final edit. A program with a real multi-track timeline, complete XML, multi-cam, interoperability with other programs, RED RAW support, and STABILITY, etc, etc, I only use FCP to do bump records for masters from MacPro AJA LHi to my AJA ioHD because it is ProRes native and only works with FCP 7. FCPX is useless to me and many other pros at this point. And I speak as a former Apple Video VAR who has installed and supported over 100 NLE systems. No one here in Hawaii is switching to FCPX in a pro environment. I have 40 years of Pro video experience. From Sony Portapaks for broadcast to 40 foot trucks and $100,000 cameras for film-style. I'm not someone with a new camcorder. God help us if Apple ever quits supporting the MacPro. It will be a Windows world in post. UGH!

Just started reading this thread, but there's no denying this one.

Agree wholeheartedly Newton!

Understandable why you wouldn't switch to Lion. To each his own. But look at what you'd miss out on by switching to Windows. Not a ton, but enough to make me not (heck- just the $1.5k on CS5 would be enough).



I know it sounds whiney- but you are adding a step. I print to PDF, then go grab the PDF and merge. We do hundreds of these a day. That's hours of productivity.

Right now, I can highlight 30 mix-match files of all types and right click- print to sharp desk, and its done.

Adobe Acrobat lets me do the same thing- but they took that feature off for the Mac version for a "technical reason" (i.e.- they hate Apple )


I'll look into it- Thanks. Excel and Word are the two keys- so hopefully it works effectively. Sharpdesk is actually a fantastic program through windows- I wish there was a Mac version. And the only way I'm switching over to all Macs is if there is no Windows needed. Why buy a Mac if I still have to use Windows.


Here is what I had my QA office post a few months back (and got no responses).

We are considering converting our small business from PC to Mac. We want to avoid having run windows simultaneously via parallels if at all possible. We use Sharpdesk Desktop for windows which is a document/page manager. We've built our reporting process around the capabilities of this program, and we report hundreds of 20-30 page PDF documents a week. We mainly just use the Composer feature because you can print directly to the application from almost any other application using the built in printer driver, and then print or export the entire file to PDF. We currently print from Filemaker, Microsoft Office, and Adobe programs.

Composer displays all of the pages in a window as they are added, and we can add/remove, import additional documents or pages, or arrange the pages in a different order. I'm looking for a mac application that can provide this functionality. We've considered just using Acrobat, but we print from multiple layouts in Filemaker a single page at a time, and having to print so many single page PDF files and then combine them into one PDF for every single report we do, seems more time consuming.

I've looked at a few document management systems, like iDocument, but we are looking more for the ability to compile a final document as opposed to organizing or scanning existing ones.

Thanks for any help you can provide!

Look - it's very, very simple. No new Xeon server class chips from Intel, no Mac Pro update!

Unless your machine is a smoking crater on your desk, what does it matter anyway? Have you maxed out the RAM in it? Changed out SATA for SAS or SSD? Upgraded your video card?

All of those things will get you higher performance for video than a CPU upgrade, and you can do them today.

You can play chicken little and switch platforms on a rumor or gut feeling, but it seems pretty irrational to me

The fight is over, FCP X has won the day, but lost much of the professional community in one slice of an X.

If any FCP management had one scintilla of acuity in this area they would promote the heck out of X ( oh right..they are doing that...thats Easy with al the shills around) but bring back the 'Classic' coke as it were, bringing back the Pro and in the process bring back the pros to the Apple fold.

X is a Toy, it remains a toy for the forceable future. The two updates have done more to prove that there is little to no trajectory in X towards the professional market.

Those with courage like Walter Murch say what those afraid of offending Apple won't say :

"When we made Cold Mountain on FCP 3, it was tough but we did it. But I can't use FCP X, it doesn't do the job"

Thanks for MAKING MY POINT!!!

Why call it PRO if it's made for typical dads?

No Xserve, no pro products...Apple needs to have a pro department or give up on pro altogether.

They've already given up on Xserve, so who knows what short-sighted BS they will pull?

this sounds like reality as it happened, to me. maybe its you who needs to "come out of the basement".

Anyway, whats with all the personal attack rubbish on here anyway?

A lot of this seems to be happening on here. Thats why I have stopped dropping by so much...